Watching
by Aeria
Summary: Happy little S/V tag to the end of the finale. Syd and Vaughn sit down and have a talk. R & R


OK first of all, I still haven't gotten around to reading the transcripts properly of the last two eps and this is just to pass my miserable time. I am always positive, you all know that and this is no exception. It's just my take on S/V after the final...  
  
He stood watching her from behind the glass. She was still in a cautionary stage of isolation and he wasn't sure how he'd hold up if he actually went through the door that was now all keeping him from her: Sydney. His Sydney. What he had been thinking of her as for the last two years: His Sydney. And now there she was, a flimsy piece of glass separating them, him with the ability to marvel at the way she sat, muscles ready to jump to attention in the only seat the room had to offer.  
  
A man entered, dressed from head to toe in the green material everyone associates with hospitals. He smiled at Vaughn and handed over the clip board. She is who she says she is. Vaughn nodded, not needing the doctor's DNA results but appreciating them anyway. He did however glance at them to try to decipher through the numbers whether or not she was okay. Looking up at the doctor he asked, not really needing to voice his thoughts but quietly questioning, "Is she okay?"  
  
The doctor smiled again, his mouth creasing into a smile, "She seems perfectly fine. You can go in if you want."  
  
With that he left Vaughn alone with his thoughts. He wanted to see her, to explain, to try to explain at least. But he was scared at the same time, he had no idea what had happened over the past two years and neither did anyone else. He put the clipboard down on the near by table and took a seat. Leaning back he relaxed into the chair, staring through the one way glass into the desolate room.  
  
For the last two hours she'd sat in the exact same spot, in the exact same chair because there was no other chair to sit on and staring at the answerless glass because there was nothing else to look at. She hadn't let an inch of herself go as she sat there, her fingers gripped at her pants, her muscles tensed, feet well grounded. You could roll in there with four body guards and she'd try to take them out...and probably succeed.  
  
He wondered where she'd been, it was obvious she hadn't been doing something innocent and every time he thought about it more he crept closer to the inevitable conclusion that she had been used in some new evil scheme and had now been discarded. He didn't want to think about that though, what he wanted...he knew what he wanted and that wasn't it.  
  
00000000  
  
Sydney sat and she waited and then she sat some more. It was stupid for her to try to fathom what was going on but for a while she did, only for a while before she decided that se needed to think about something far more important: Vaughn. For starters, why was he wearing a ring and what did he mean she'd been away from two years.  
  
Inside her head she grinned ruefully, her situation was incredulous. She was the good guy, the heroine she had finally taken out SD-6 and she had finally gotten her man and then life had gotten bad again and now it was worse than ever before. Whoever said "Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before" had never woken up after a two year disappearance to find the love of their life married.  
  
When he'd come for her in Hong Kong, he hadn't been talking very much, he hadn't seemed able to explain. He was shocked and upset. And that ring. Was he shocked and upset that she was alive and that now he and whoever it was he'd married were going to have hard times, was he upset because he'd been forced to go all the way for some girl he'd known a couple of years ago? She thought hard, stupid considering she should have been thinking about working her life out not Vaughn.  
  
But her revive was interrupted as the door opened for only the third time. The first had been to let her in, her face uncharacteristically bear as she turned to see Vaughn watching her as the guard shut it in her face, the second time had been for the tests, simple ones in her experience, just blood and skin and hair and now it was opening again.  
  
"Sydney." Vaughn stood awkwardly in front of her, she'd turned in her seat as he entered and he hadn't missed the shift in her facial features as they shifted into what he not-so-fondly remembered having classified the Jack look. He could no longer read her and all that he knew was that she didn't want him to read it.  
  
She clenched her teeth down hard; she wanted to scream this not knowing was one of the few things she hated. He watched her, forehead wrinkled just as it always had. "You have been missing for two years."  
  
Sydney nodded but didn't trust herself to speak. Vaughn could only bite his lip and continue: "No one knows where no one knows why. I'm going to guess you can't remember anything."  
  
"Nothing," she whispered, voice husky with unshed tears as she watched Vaughn as carefully as she could.  
  
He paused just revelling in the sound of her voice however many layers of pent up anger he could ear behind them. "You okay?"  
  
She shrugged it off, mentally chastising herself as her fingers edged down to his hand to see the ring gone replaced with a white skin standing starkly out from the rest of his tan. And she couldn't take it, it was too obvious to her, it wasn't that he'd spent two years mourning her and had gotten married just the other day, the skin, it was so white he must have been married for at least 12 months. "You didn't have to take it off." The words came out not so much in an angry tone as more exhausted.  
  
Vaughn looked at her, understanding her situation slowly: she had effectively been dating him less than twenty four hours before in her world and now she thought he was married. He had to point out her mistake, he just wasn't sure how.  
  
"Syd, I'm not married."  
  
She watched him, obviously disbelieving and asking the question if not out loud. "I'm not. When you disappeared I..." he trailed off, finding his speech just as hard as he expected.  
  
"What?" she pursued.  
  
"I vowed I wasn't going to give up on you." Her eyes narrowed, either in thought or doubt. "I talked to your dad and he actually gave me some good advice. I put a gold ring on, the one you saw. And I told myself it wasn't coming off until we were together again."  
  
He paused, sliding onto the top of the bench to face her, getting as close as he could without suffocating. "And I didn't."  
  
Sydney's face melted, all the indifference disappeared as the tears began to fall. And in a flash Vaughn's fingers were brushing her cheeks with soft butterfly touches, wiping away the tears while trying to memorise the contours of her face once again. He leaned in, hoping no one was watching bit at the same time not really caring.  
  
He purposely let his own face rub against her own, his teeth nipping at her neck as her kissed up her cheek, the salty taste of her tears still evident but the dripping stopped. He pulled back for an instant, "I'd never leave you. Never." He leaned in smiling, glad to have her back and even more glad to know that she was his. Slowly their lips met beginning what would soon become an occurrence never to be missed for a single day. 


End file.
